WATCH: Cute Orphaned Russian Bear Cub Overload

I wish you could hear what’s going on during their feeding – they know nothing about good manners. Their muzzles and legs are all in porridge; they eat hastily splashing their food all around; they quarrel and try to get into each others bowl; they’re growing wild – that’s their fortune and our job.

VIDEO: The footage below shows orphaned Russian bear cubs at our rehabilitation center outside Moscow being moved between holding areas. They are allowed as a group to play in their natural wilderness so they can develop the skills they need to live on their own in the wild. - ED

I accompanied a team that was going to shoot a 3D movie about our bears; so, if everything goes well, maybe in some years you will have an opportunity to walk through our forest with our bears being in a cinema.

Currently, our center has 8 bears. Our experiment is in progress. Two baby bears born in a zoo were taken to us.

V.S. Panzhetov, the center director, said that they are even more wild than those brought to us as orphans from mothers killed in the den hunting season, since they have imprinted on their mother bear.

Some information from biology: when a baby bear opens its eyes, it considers the first live creature it sees to be its mother. That’s what imprinting is. It was discovered that in a zoo baby bears have imprinting on their mother, and as soon as they find themselves in the right environment nature has its effect and very soon they go to the forest and start living in the wild.

I wanted to make a portrait photo of each of them, but it was inconvenient for our babies, so enjoy their back view taken during their feeding. Only minimal contact with baby bears is allowed, that’s why I was permitted to enter their cage during feeding only, when the tasty porridge takes all of their attention. By the way, a blender is used to mix porridge for bears, just as for my nephews that are 7 months old.

I wish you could hear what’s going on during their feeding – they know nothing about good manners. Their muzzles and legs are all in porridge; they eat hastily splashing their food all around; they quarrel and try to get into each others bowl; they’re growing wild – that’s their fortune and our job.